The memory of the Tiananmen massacre remains non-existent in China, thirty-five years later

On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered its army to shoot thousands of young demonstrators gathered in Tiananmen Square. Thirty-five years later, the memory of this massacre is erased in China and struggles to exist elsewhere.

The protest began on April 15, 1989, in China, when thousands of young people invaded Tiananmen Square to protest against corruption and demand political and democratic reforms. On June 4 of the same year, the Chinese government signed the end of the movement by ordering the army to shoot at the demonstrators: no official figures exist, but the number of victims is estimated at several thousand, mainly students. Today, 35 years later, it is abroad that this memory is evoked with a gathering organized on Monday June 4 in Paris.

One thing is certain, it is not in China that the memory of Tiananmen lives. For the authorities, the massacre never took place, many Chinese are even unaware and for those who experienced it, silence prevailed. “People who weren’t born at the time certainly didn’t find out from their parents that there had been a demonstration because the parents knew that if they told their children about it, they risked ‘make them dissidents“, explains sinologist Marie Holzman.

The memory of the Tiananmen massacre, non-existent in China, is also fading among Hong Kongers who have commemorated it every year since 1989: “They were the ones who kept the memory of Tiananmen, continues Marie Holzman. They were the ones who gathered at Victoria Park in their tens of thousands, with the most fervor.”

The memory is failing, including among Westerners who turn out to be unreliable when it comes to talking about the massacre. According to the specialist, “from time to time, contracts with China obsess them” and mentioning Tiananmen is then put back to “later”.

The memory of the massacre seems impossible. However, its shadow still looms over Chinese leaders. They trembled again two years ago when, emerging from Covid and as a protest against the power, Chinese youth took to the streets brandishing white sheets.